Storage racks for supporting pallets are well known in the art and various designs have been considered. Conventional storage racks include an upright frame structure having pairs of generally parallel, laterally spaced support beams at different elevations. Pallets to be supported on the storage racks arc placed on the storage rack via a lift truck or the like in a manner so that the pallet is supported at both ends by the two support beams in a pair. Because the pallets are usually placed on the storage rack using a lift truck, it is often difficult for the lift truck operator to determine if the pallet is properly positioned so that when lowered, it will rest on both support beams. This difficulty has resulted in pallets being placed on the storage rack improperly and falling between the support beams.
To overcome this problem, safety bars have been developed for use in such storage racks. The safety bars are placed at convenient intervals and span the support beams of the pairs. To facilitate alignment of the safety bars and inhibit lateral movement, the safety bars are provided with downwardly extending tabs at both ends that arc received in slots formed in the support beams. The safety bars provide support to a pallet placed on the support beams and prevent the pallet from falling between the support beams in the event that the pallet is improperly placed on the storage rack.
The design of the mating tabs and slots is such that the safety bar is very easily removed from the support beams and can be achieved simply by lifting the safety bar. Unfortunately, in many instances, especially when freezing between the pallet and the safety bar occurs, the safety bar is inadvertently lifted from the support beams when the pallet is removed from the storage rack.
To overcome this problem, it has been considered to place beads near the ends of the tabs to resist removal of the tabs from the slots. However, this design to inhibit inadvertent lifting of the safety bar from the support bars has still been proven to be inadequate. It has also been considered to place downwardly and outwardly extending tabs at opposed ends of the safety bar on one of its sides. With this configuration, to install the safety bar, the safety bar needs to be rotated so that the downwardly and outwardly extending tabs firstly enter into appropriate slots of the support beams and then rotated back so that the other tabs are received in the appropriate slots of the support beams. Although this design provides some resistance to inadvertent separation between the safety bar and the support beams, the safety bar is still prone to accidental removal.
Accordingly there exists a need for an improved storage rack and safety bar design. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel storage rack and safety bar for use therein.